October Snowstorm and Fall Foliage
A freak October snowstorm has left me with beautiful scenes of snow-covered fall foliage and no electricity.
So I’m essentially off the grid until NYSEG can figure out how to restore my power.
Snow Foliage
Trees on Wires
One Hundred Great Jewish Books by Rabbi Lawrence A. Hoffman is now available!
One Hundred Great Jewish Books: Three Millennia of Jewish Conversation
Here’s more about the book from his blog:
One Hundred Great Jewish Books: Three Millennia of Jewish Conversation reflects an idea I have been playing with for about a decade now. What is Judaism, if not an identity that is portrayed through a rolling conversation across the centuries! The book is a running record of the conversation as portrayed through every variety of Jewish book: classical texts and medieval responsa, but also modern fiction, short stories, histories, biographies, and even comic books, encyclopedias, and cook books. I read over 200 books to make the selection, but here it is at last: my running guide to the Jewish conversational record.
[Update: There’s a very helpful review by Neal Gendler here.]
Changing the Son of God for Muslims
An article in World Magazine discusses Wycliffe‘s recent debate about how to translate “Son of God” and “God the Father” into Arabic for Muslim audiences, noting that “in Muslim contexts,” a literal translation “implies that God had sexual relations with Mary” — at least according to some translators.
Therefore, Wycliffe’s translations have at times resorted to alternative wordings, causing more than a little debate.
It seems to me that there are two factual questions here.
Continue reading
Accuracy versus Personal Preference: a hidden choice in Bible translation
The latest round of reporting on the LifeWay Bible-preference poll addresses the theme of gender-neutral translations, with headlines like, “Study: Bible readers oppose gender-inclusive translations” (from the Associated Baptist Press).
What I find interesting here is that the poll specifically explained that some Greek and Hebrew terms refer to “people in general,” and the question was whether these inclusive terms should be translated as “man” or as “humankind” etc.:
“Bible translators have to make choices regarding gender issues. For example, the original Greek and Hebrew often uses masculine words such as those literally meaning ‘man’ to describe people in general. Some translators think these should be translated literally as ‘man’ while others think they should be translated into gender-inclusive terms such as ‘humankind,’ ‘human being,’ ‘person’ or ‘one.’ Which do you prefer?”
The question was, in my opinion, biased, but not terribly so. Describing the translation of “man” as “literal” but not describing the other terms with any potentially positive attribute seems unbalanced; also, the question suggests that the original can be translated “as `man,'” but “into gender-inclusive terms.” Even so, the question specifically told respondents that the point was to convey “people in general.” And only 12 percent wanted the more accurate choice.
Another way to phrase the poll question, it seems to me, would have been: “Some translators try to tell you what the text of the Bible means while others try to give you a text that you will like. Which do you prefer?” Of course, I have no way of knowing for sure what the results of asking such a question would be, but I find it hard to believe that the same 82 percent that opted for “man” would choose translations that are tailored to personal preference.
So why did so many people prefer the word “man” to express “people in general”?
As with the accuracy versus readability, I think these poll results have more to do with culture than with translation, linguistics, or Bible studies.
About
God Didn’t Say That (@GodDidntSayThat) is an online forum for discussing the Bible and its translations, mistranslations, interpretations, and misinterpretations.
Dr. Joel M. Hoffman is the chief translator for the ten-volume series My People’s Prayer Book, author of And God Said: How Translations Conceal the Bible’s Original Meaning, and editor of The Unabridged Bible. Writing under “J.M. Hoffman,” he is author of the thriller series The Warwick Files. He holds a PhD in theoretical linguistics and has taught at Brandeis University and HUC-JIR in New York City. He presents widely to churches, synagogues, and other groups. more…
Have a question or a topic you’d like addressed? Click on “About” here or to the far upper right and leave a comment.
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My thriller series: The Warwick Files.
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